


Orage

by chidorinnn



Category: K (Anime)
Genre: Fem!Kuroh, Fem!Yashiro, Genderbending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-13
Updated: 2016-04-13
Packaged: 2018-06-01 23:30:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6541192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chidorinnn/pseuds/chidorinnn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(an entry to Femslash February, two months late)</p><p>ORAGE<br/>[noun]<br/>definition: thunderstorm<br/>etymology: French, from old French <i>ore<i> meaning "wind"</i></i> </p><p>  <i>A disastrous encounter with Scepter IV leads to losses of identity and a clumsy retreat, among other things.</i><br/>Based loosely off K SIDE: Black and White</p>
            </blockquote>





	Orage

**Author's Note:**

> So I was discussing with a friend who is also very into K Project how amazing the worldbuilding in the series is, and yet how very disappointing it is that there are hardly any female characters to speak of that aren't immediately reduced to their fanservice appeal. We ultimately came to the conclusion that an AU in which the entire Silver Clan consists of women, requiring both Shiro and Kuroh to be female, would make for quite enjoyable entertainment.
> 
> Apparently, it also works great for femslash potential, of which there's absolutely none in canon.

     Mashiro faints in the bath, and all it takes is fifteen minutes in the hot water.

     Kuroi half-drags her back into the hotel room they'd impulsively booked just a short while ago, and Neko’s illusions make the three of them look like ordinary high school students, rather than a vassal, a cat, and a nobody.

     “Sorry guys,” Mashiro says weakly.

     Kuroi lays her down surprisingly gently on the middle of the bed. Her long, dark hair is still dripping wet, and the bedsheets darken with the falling water droplets. They’d decided to stay at a love hotel, of all places. It's no place for supposed high school girls like themselves, and that's precisely why it's the perfect place to hide. It was lucky that they'd even managed to come here, let alone that Neko's illusions had managed to keep them under the radar for so long. “Idiot,” Kuroi grumbles. “You should have said something the minute you started feeling ill."

     “Sorry, sorry,” Mashiro says again, smiling sheepishly. It’s uncomfortably hot and stuffy, and she can’t be sure that it’s entirely due to the steam from the bath.

     “Are you okay, Shiro?” Neko asks anxiously, and suddenly she’s to close and too loud. “Are you dizzy? Are you gonna throw up? Are you—"

     Kuroi presses a hand to Neko’s forehead and shoves her away. “Quiet!” she snaps. “She won’t get any better if you keep pestering her like that."

     Neko pouts and turns away with an indignant “Hmph!"

     Kuroi settles down next to Mashiro, sitting with her legs crossed over the edge of the bed and smoothing out her nightgown. She looks surprisingly serene and graceful then, so unlike the knight who’d so callously pointed her sword at Mashiro’s throat just a short while ago. “In all seriousness, though,” she says, “are you all right?"

     With a long, weary exhale, Mashiro turns to look at Kuroi. “I wasn’t injured or anything, if that’s what you’re asking."

     “That’s not what I...“ Kuroi starts, but then she trails off with a harsh sigh. “Forget it."

     All is silent for a few minutes that seem to stretch out for an eternity. The uncomfortable nausea making Mashiro’s stomach twist into knots has been there since before they came to the hotel, she doesn’t tell her companions — since Neko had allowed what few memories she had to return to her in one horrifying, sickening instant, since it became painfully apparent that nothing she thought she knew about herself is  _real_ anymore, since she'd remembered the silver-haired woman with the cruel, deranged smirk who'd shoved her off that airship. Maybe the hot water was the extra push her body needed to finally force her to shut down.

     “Maybe we should ask someone for help,” Kuroi says quietly. It’s the first time she’s even suggested such a thing, and Mashiro doesn’t know what’s worse — that Kuroi feels defeated enough to do so, or that their situation is so dire that it might be necessary. “You don’t look well at all."

     Mashiro smiles because it’s all that she knows to do. “I’ll be fine,” she says. “I’m sure I’ll be good as new if I just take it easy for a bit.” She’s not at all sure, but she doesn’t say this out loud. “Besides… who would we even call? It’s not like I have anyone I can ask."

     “Me too!” Neko chimes in with her usual cheer, though maybe it sounds a little more forced than usual — or maybe Mashiro’s just so tired that she’s thinking too much about it. Even Neko seems more subdued than usual — she didn't even complain when Kuroi insisted that she put on clothes after leaving the bath. “It’s all on you, Kuroko!"

     Kuroi shakes her head. “The only people I _can_  ask are too far away.” Then her brow furrows, and she rubs her chin. “Maybe I could…? No, that wouldn’t work…"

     “So there _is_  someone?” Mashiro asks. She lifts her head so suddenly that she’s instantly lightheaded and dizzy, and she flops uselessly back onto her back. A small groan escapes her despite her meager efforts to suppress it, and Kuroi and Neko look to her in alarm. 

     “It’s a long shot, but we have nothing to lose at this point,” Kuroi says firmly. Pursing her lips, she reaches into her satchel, lying next to the black skirt she’d discarded in favor of a nightgown, and pulls out her PDA. She runs her thumb over it a few times, and then holds it up to her ear. Some seconds later, she frowns and lets the PDA fall harshly to the floor. “Useless…"

     “Well, it’s like you said,” Mashiro says faintly. “We have nothing to lose. We’re no worse off than we were just a few minutes ago!” Kuroh sighs harshly in response. “Who were you trying to reach anyway?"

     She doesn’t expect Kuroi to respond, but Kuroi does anyway. Maybe it’s because they’re all at their limit. Maybe it’s because Kuroi’s just as spent as she is, and their situation really is hopeless. “My brother."

     Mashiro smiles. “I didn’t know you had a brother."

     “I wanna meet him!” Neko enthuses. “I bet he’s all grumpy and stuffy like you are, Kuroko!"

     “No,” Kuroi says bluntly. “He’s vain, and over-dramatic, and irresponsible, and—"

     Mashiro laughs, cutting her off. “It sounds like you two are close."

     Kuroi just shakes her head. “Hardly. I haven’t seen him in years.” She looks down at her PDA, her eyes narrowing ever so slightly, and she taps at it absentmindedly. “He’s not really my brother, anyway. We just happened to study under Ichigen-sama together."

     “Was it just you three?” Mashiro asks, and Kuroi nods in response. “Then I think that makes him your brother."

     “It doesn’t matter,” Kuroi whispers. Her voice is suddenly heavy with some negative emotion that Mashiro can’t identify — melancholy, perhaps. “It was foolish to expect him to respond."

     Mashiro sighs and pretends that it’s not out of exhaustion. “Well, we don’t need him anyway. We can manage just fine on our own."

     “Shiro’s right!” Neko agrees enthusiastically. “We don’t need Kuroko’s stupid brother!"

     Kuroi shakes her head, but paradoxically, she’s smiling. “I just told you, he’s not my brother."

     Mashiro closes her eyes and struggles not to fall asleep right then and there. “Tell me about it."

     “Hm?” Kuroi says, lifting her head slightly.

     “You,” Mashiro says. For some reason, her mind’s starting to go fuzzy and it’s getting harder to speak. “Your brother. Ichigen-sama."

     Kuroi’s voice is warm and comforting as she starts speaking — it’s hard for Mashiro to wrap her head around the fact that this same voice accused her of murder just a short while ago.

* * *

     It’s strange, talking about bad things that have happened in the past. It makes Kuroi feel as weak and pathetic as she did all those many years ago. So she edits — she edits and downplays because maybe there’s no need for Mashiro and Neko to know _that_  much about her, especially since there’s still the possibility that she will have to slay at least one of them.

     So Kuroi downplays the story of her parents and siblings dying in that awful car accident. She doesn’t tell them about how her mother pulled her close, shielding her from the worst of it. She doesn’t tell them about those long months she spent in the hospital, blissfully ignorant to everything outside until just a short while before she was discharged, when reality suddenly slammed into her and she thought shamefully, pathetically, that maybe things would have been easier if she’d died with the rest of her family.

     She doesn’t tell them about her new guardians either — how they’d barely lasted a year after taking her in, only to die on a whim from carbon monoxide poisoning of all things.

     She does tell them, however, exactly what her relatives had whispered about her back then — that she was a witch, an angel of death, a sign of bad luck whose only purpose was to ruin and destroy. Never overtly, of course, but it was certainly implied — and surely that was why only Teppei was willing to take her in. Teppei, whom the entire family knew had an addiction to alcohol that usually resulted in explosive fits of anger. Teppei, who constantly asked for loans from aunts and uncles to fuel his compulsive gambling habits.

     Really, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone that Kuroi’s inheritance was squandered away within a few short weeks — and yet, there wasn’t a single word of protest. There wasn’t a single word of protest when Kuroi’s teachers at school complained about her suddenly horrible attendance, when she’d been such an earnest, diligent student less than a month ago. There wasn’t a single word of protest when just a short while later, the school refused to take her in when she showed up one day with a skyrocketing fever, after nearly two weeks of a persistent cough that had grown worse with each passing day. There wasn’t a single word of protest when Teppei disappeared one day, so quietly and so randomly that no one could possibly prevent it, even though it was so predictable and in character for him that they should have seen it coming long ago. There wasn’t a single word of protest when Kuroi left just a short while later, without any fuss.

     (Kuroi edits this part of course — she mentions what she later learned was a painful combination of malnutrition, dehydration, and pneumonia, but she doesn’t mention her stupid, irrational fears that everyone in the hospital would drop dead if she dared to go there for help. She doesn’t mention that she’d only headed for the mountains because all she wanted, and she’s still not sure how lucid she was at this point in time, was to run away and leave everything behind.)

     Maybe it was a testament to just how far gone she was, that the chill of the mountain was even slightly bearable with what meager clothing she had. Or maybe it was a sign of just how determined she was to get even a little bit farther away from everything. It was comforting, in its own perverse way — an angel of death dying in the snow, so far removed from civilization that there was no way she could take anyone else with her.

     Either way, she collapsed into the snow soon enough, unable to do anything but shiver and cough. Her memories of meeting the people who would become her new family are hazy and blurry, and she’s still not sure how much of it was real and how much of it was a hallucination. That didn’t stop Ichigen-sama and Yukari from telling her what had happened in their own romanticized ways.

    "You know how it is in superhero shows, right?" Ichigen-sama had said, mostly accurate. "I had to fuse with you and give you some of my power to save your life."

    "'Save me, Big Brother!' you said," Yukari had told her, mostly inaccurate. “I had to carry you all the way to the hospital! And you kept pestering me to put you down, saying that I was going to die if I helped you!"

     At this point in the story, there's no longer any need to edit, and Kuroi can't help the small smile that forms when she elaborates on the first few years she'd spent in Ichigen-sama's care. In hindsight, maybe those first few years were the happiest of her life — back when everything was so easy and simple that she could only wonder if there was something wrong, if all of it was just some cruelly blissful dream and that she'd wake up back in Teppei's house, or in the care of some relative that called her a witch when they thought she wasn't listening.

     It had been just the three of them — Ichigen-sama, Yukari, and Kuroi, and Kuroi wouldn’t have had it any other way. There was something about the way Ichigen-sama would always be so endlessly patient with her, even when it took months for her to return to some semblance of healthiness, even when it took even longer for the frequent hospital visits — for simple check-ups and nothing else, Ichigen-sama had promised her, to make sure she was returning to a healthy weight, to see if her prolonged illness had any long-term effects — to stop, even when she couldn’t do anything to pay back his kindness. And she could never quite kick the habit of calling Yukari “Big Brother” after that first delirious encounter.

    She doesn't edit her first _real_ memory of living with Ichigen-sama — not too badly marred by illness or confusion, without expecting everything to end before it could ever truly begin. It's so simple and inconsequential, in hindsight, and yet it remains stubbornly clear in her memory. 

    It was just some calm, lazy afternoon. It had been raining then, and all three of them had been inside. Yukari tugged a comb through Kuroi's too-long hair and swore colorfully at every knot and tangle. (Ichigen-sama would then halfheartedly reprimand him for cursing in front of what was essentially the baby of the family, but never so harshly that Yukari would see any reason to change.) "It's like you don't even care, Kuroi-chan!" Yukari practically wailed, and he promised then and there that he was going to make Kuroi's hair _beautiful_ , or die trying. 

    It ended with so much of it being cut off that there were clumps of black hair everywhere — but it was oddly pleasant, having her hair so short and out of the way. With Yukari's help, it barely fell to her shoulders, and it was the shiniest and softest it had ever been. It was disorienting, how light her head felt, and yet she felt so much more  _free_ .

    (She could never keep up with Yukari's suggested hair-care regimen, let alone his skin-care regimen combined with it. He continued to nag her about it until the day he left.)

     When Yukari left, she grew out her hair again. (That's an encounter she heavily edits and downplays — she doesn’t mention the sword he pointed at Ichigen-sama; she doesn’t mention impulsively, stupidly catching the blade of that sword with her bare hands, and Ichigen-sama later cleaning and bandaging the cuts she sustained in the process, saying the entire time: "I'm so sorry, Kuroi.") And while Kuroi was never quite _unhappy_ , there was no longer any of that blissful simplicity that was there when Yukari still lived with them. There was just no one there anymore, and it _hurt_ no matter how content Ichigen-sama tried to appear for her sake.

     (There was no one there when Ichigen-sama fell sick for the last time and told her as gently as he could that this time, he wasn’t going to get better. There was no one there when he passed away so quietly and peacefully in his sleep that she didn’t even register that he was gone until she’d checked on him hours after he should have been out of bed. There was no one there to help her plan the wake, no one there to tie up what was left of Ichigen-sama’s assets, no one there to mourn with her.)

* * *

    Kuroi frowns as she runs her thumb over her PDA once more and settles on Yukari's contact. It had been surprisingly easy to obtain it in the first place — there was a tiny slip of of paper with his number and his email address at the bottom of one of Ichigen-sama's drawers, and that was all Kuroi had needed. Never mind that Yukari never responded to any of her emails, or answered the phone whenever she called.

    It's only been a few weeks since Ichigen-sama had passed away, and yet it feels like an entire lifetime ago. For an instant, she can feel her eyes stinging with tears that she refuses to shed — not in front of Mashiro and Neko. 

    (Not for the first time, she curses her own helplessness. If only she'd paid more attention, took better care of him, tried harder to contact Yukari...)

    Impulsively, Kuroi switches off her PDA's screen and stands. She needs to get her mind onto something else, or she will unravel into a sniveling, tearful mess. Kuroi's always had a decent grasp on her emotions, but for some reason it's harder to keep them contained now. She shouldn't have indulged Mashiro and spoken of the past. She shouldn't have brought up Yukari or Ichigen-sama at all.

    Mashiro remains uncharacteristically silent, and Kuroi makes her way over to her. Sure enough, the girl is fast asleep, breathing too deeply to be roused out of it anytime soon. Her face is paler than usual, except her cheeks are slightly flushed. Shadows collect under her eyes, and her brow knots together in something akin to discomfort. Kuroi lays her hand gently on Mashiro's cheek — to check if she's okay, Kuroi insists to herself, and for no other reason.

    Neko hisses, and shamefully, Kuroi flinches and withdraws her hand. It takes a few seconds too long to compose herself. "I'm not going to hurt her," Kuroi says, clearing her throat as her voice shakes slightly with emotions that are pointless to show. "There's no honor in striking someone down when they're in no condition to defend themselves."

    Neko doesn't hiss when Kuroi rests her hand on Mashiro's forehead the second time around, before dragging it down to the girl’s cheek. Mashiro's too warm, maybe even feverish, and Kuroi frowns. It could just be that she's still a bit overheated from the bath — in fact, that's probably exactly what it is — and yet Kuroi can't help but wonder if it's something else. The prospect of this girl simply wasting away — this girl she may very well have to strike down, if she really is the one who murdered Tatara Totsuka — is surprisingly painful to consider.

     "Kuroko..." Neko says quietly, meekly. Kuroi turns to look at her second companion, and there's none of the vitriol she'd expressed just moments before. Neko wrings her hands together, looking down at the floor. "Is Shiro going to be okay?"

     Kuroi nods. "I believe so," she answers maybe a little too optimistically. It's the same answer Ichigen-sama would give her whenever he fell ill and she'd ask how he was — every time before the last time he fell ill, of course. "Still, it couldn't hurt to take this time to rest... all of us." But Neko doesn't perk up like she usually would at such a prospect. Kuroi sighs and gives her a small smile. She's used to this — she knows the intricacies of looking after people in her care, and Neko, as unusual as she is, is no exception. "Why don't we call the front desk and ask for some food to be brought up?"

     This produces the desired effect, and Neko grins and nods enthusiastically. "I want sashimi!"

     "We'll take whatever we can afford," Kuroi says calmly, neither confirming nor denying Neko's request.  She switches on her PDA and closes Yukari's contact to dial the number of the front desk. Sashimi is a little outside her budget, but maybe she can let this one slide.

* * *

     Kuroi falls asleep before the food can arrive. Neko can't exactly blame her — she was the one who'd fought to keep them alive, back when the scary people in the blue coats attacked them. She'd been hurt then — not so badly that she needed immediate medical attention, but badly enough that it slowed her down.

    Mashiro wasn't hurt like Kuroi was, Neko thinks, but maybe that's worse. Mashiro isn't moving now, aside from the slow, steady rise and fall of her chest — usually, she turns and fidgets a little, sometimes even rambles about numbers and weird science-y things in her sleep that Neko can't understand. Neko wonders, briefly, if it had really been the best idea to keep Mashiro in the dark for so long, but then crushes that doubt before it can fully take form. Mashiro looks like she's in pain, like it's too much for her to even keep her eyes open — she didn't look like that when Neko had first met her. Even though Kuroi acts like they'll be back on their feet and ready to go soon enough, even though Mashiro smiles like she always does and says that everything is fine, Neko knows that something isn't right. She's not a child; she's not stupid.

     A knock at their room door snaps her out of her thoughts. "Miss Ameno?" says a voice on the other side. "Miyabi Ameno?"

     Neko frowns and clenches her fists at her sides. She _hates_ that name — it makes her hair stand up on end, and she wants to grind her teeth together. But they'd needed a fake name to stay here, and Kuroi and Mashiro had been too slow to come up with one. It was so, so easy for the name "Miyabi Ameno" to come to her, as disgusting and revolting a name as it was.

    Neko takes a few seconds to reapply the illusion on Mashiro and Kuroi that she'd lifted after they first entered their hotel room, and makes sure that the illusion on herself is secure. Only then does she open the door, to the worker who's brought three trays of food with her, each one covered with a silver lid. Neko takes enough bills from Kuroi's satchel to pay the worker and makes sure to lock the door when she shuts it. The fish smells so good that her mouth waters, but for some reason, it feels wrong to eat by herself — not when Mashiro and Kuroi can't.

    She pushes the trays to a corner of the room where her companions can't trip on them, if they decide to get up. Neko sinks into the mattress, sitting down and pulling her knees to her chest. Her clothes feel chafing and constricting, but she leaves them on because Mashiro will get upset and Kuroi will yell at her if she takes them off.

    Insanely, she wonders how easy it would be to just... _leave_ . Take Mashiro and go far, far away — away from the scary people in the blue coats, away from those fireball-shooting maniacs who accused her of killing someone — away from  _Kuroi_ , who still might try to kill her if things go too badly.

    ("Don't be like that, Neko," she can picture Mashiro saying to that. "Kuroi saved our lives. We wouldn't be here without her.")

    "Mm..." Mashiro says, frowning. Then she shifts, turning onto her side to face Kuroi. Kuroi seems to have fallen asleep while sitting up, one leg tucked in and the other knee propped up. She's resting one arm on the knee that's propped up, her forehead pressed to it, while bracing the other against the mattress for balance. Neko wants to laugh because that doesn't look like a comfortable position at all, but then she stops herself because it means that Kuroi will probably wake up cranky.

    "What did Kuroko do with Shiro again...?" she mumbles to herself. It takes some careful maneuvering to get Kuroi to lie down without jostling her too much, but miraculously, she manages to not wake her up in the process. "There!" Neko whispers, grinning triumphantly as she dusts her hands off. 

    A serene smile spreads across Kuroi's face as she turns onto her side so that she's facing Mashiro, curling into herself with a content, relaxed exhale. "Mm..." she says in a slightly muffled voice. "Thank you, Ichigen-sama..."

    For some reason, Neko wants to laugh. It's funny to think that Kuroi's dreaming of home now, though perhaps it makes sense, since all she's done since she arrived is talk about her precious Ichigen-sama. And then, there's some vaguely unpleasant feeling — not quite sadness, but some kind of discomfort regardless.

     Kuroi… doesn’t have a home anymore. Her home was Ichigen-sama, and now he’s gone. Even if her brother does answer, he probably won’t be a home like Ichigen-sama was.

     And really, Neko’s no different. If Ichigen-sama is Kuroi's home, then Mashiro is Neko's. Mashiro is  _hers_ in a way she won't be to anyone else — Neko found her first. And if Kuroi does deem Mashiro guilty in the end, then Neko will do everything she can to fight it. After all — protecting her home is about the most important duty she has.

     (She thinks of people who may or may not be parents, glaring at her like she's some kind of monster. She thinks of a children's book from long ago, quoting it as she moved on: "I am a cat!” She thinks of running away, relying on nothing but her own instincts as she survives for years on her own. She thinks of Mashiro, falling through the roof that night when everything changed, who gave her something she had no idea she really needed.)

     Neko shakes her head furiously as she curls up next to Mashiro. The girl doesn’t even twitch when Neko wraps her arms around her and buries her face in the nightgown’s sleeve. Neko inhales deeply, and even with the obnoxiously sweet-smelling soap the hotel had provided, Mashiro smells like _home_ .

* * *

     “Up!” Kuroi shouts. “Get up!"

     “Mm…” Mashiro says, squeezing her eyes shut. There’s something cutting off the circulation in her arm, and it’s hard to move.

     Neko stretches and nearly punches Mashiro in the nose. “Kuroko…” she grumbles. “Five more minutes."

     “No, _not_ five more minutes!” Kuroi snaps. “Now!"

     “Mm…” Mashiro says again. She’s still tired and sluggish, and she can’t open her eyes all the way yet. Her chest feels heavy, and she’s strangely grateful that Kuroi roused her from whatever dream she was having. She can’t remember what exactly it was, but maybe it’s for the best — it had to be an awful one to make her feel so… inexplicably sad. 

     “Food!” Neko screeches as she suddenly releases Mashiro’s arm.

     “Oh no you don’t!” Kuroi stops her. “That’s been sitting out for at least five hours. You could fall horribly sick if you eat that!"

     “But you’ll take care of her if that happens, won’t you Kuro?” Mashiro’s voice is small, breaking, but it’s enough to make her companions fall silent for a long moment.

     “Shiro!” Neko shouts as she rushes to her side. “Are you okay?"

     “How are you feeling?” Kuroi asks, surprisingly gentle.

     Mashiro slowly sits up and exhales slowly. She still doesn’t feel quite right — she probably won’t for a long time, she surmises — but there’s none of the vague nausea and only a little of the malaise from before. “I’m okay, I think,” she answers truthfully.

     “You _think_ ?” Kuroi echoes, raising an eyebrow. 

     “Well…” Mashiro says slowly. “I think a better way to put it is… I _will_ be okay? I just need to get used to… whatever this is.” _This_ meaning this sudden lack of identity, the very real possibility that she is that exact murderer from the video and she just doesn’t remember. It’s not something physical that can be fixed with rest or medicine, but she’s still not entirely sure what exactly _it_ is.

     Kuroi sighs, and Mashiro thinks that maybe she understands. “Unfortunately, it would be unwise to stay here for much longer.” She shoots Neko a glare. “Since a certain someone squandered our food, we’ll need to find some alternative. If I remember correctly, the most inexpensive item on that menu was…"

     “Rice porridge?” Neko finishes. It makes sense, Mashiro thinks, in its own perverted way — people who’d drunk too much would need something easy on their stomachs later. “But that’s so _boring_ !"

     “If you ate when you had the chance, then we wouldn’t be having this problem!” Kuroi snaps at her.

     “I was waiting for you two to wake up!"

     “It doesn’t make any difference if you fall asleep _with_ us!” Kuroi pinches the bridge of her nose and groans. “Come to think of it, why didn’t you keep watch? What if someone found us?"

     “Well they _didn’t_ ! You’re just being stupid, Kuroko!"

     “I’m really lucky,” Mashiro blurts out.

     Kuroi and Neko fall silent once more and turn to look at her. “What?” they say simultaneously, in such a similar tone that it’s almost comical.

     “I’m really lucky,” Mashiro repeats. It must have something to do with that dream — the dream that made her feel so off, even though she can’t remember it. “I don’t remember why, but… I think that’s something I need to say. I’m really lucky that you two are here… with me."

     They stop, and Mashiro almost laughs at their twin expressions caught somewhere between shock and indignation. It’s Neko that reacts first, eyes widening and head tilting to the side. “Shiro…?"

     Kuroi moves next and lays her hand on Mashiro’s forehead. “Are you _sure_ you're feeling all right?” she asks, frowning for a different reason.

     Mashiro ducks away from Kuroi’s hand and smiles. “I mean it,” she says. She takes a deep breath and continues before she can convince herself not to. “If it weren’t for you two, I…” _I’d have been caught by the Red and Blue clans_ , is one thing to say; _I’d be dead_ , is another. “I’d be completely lost,” is what she ultimately settles on.

     Kuroi and Neko exchange an identical look, and shrug simultaneously. "If you say so," is all Kuroi says, though Mashiro would like to think that she believes her. "Now I know you're still not feeling well, but you need to get up."

     Mashiro sighs as she pulls the comforter off and swings her legs over the side of the bed. "I already told you, I'm  _fine_ ." But the irritation fades quickly, and though it's loud, it's easy to fall into the familiar comfort of having Kuroi and Neko there with her.


End file.
